
Class. 
Book.. 






GopyrigM . 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Back Log and Pine Knot 



A Chronicle of the 
Minnisink Hunting and Fishing Cluh 



BY 

O. H. 



C i<x, Hin*rcK*~Ji_ 



Privately Printed 



COPYRIGHT. 191* 

BY 

OLIVER HOWARD WOLFE 



SITU 

,W<6 




CI.A453161 



DhC 16 1916 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



The Woods 

A UTUMN has come again to our Mountain. 
*■*■ Through the summer, the silent trees have skeltered 
the wild creatures of the woods and tne birds which 
made the days joyous with chatter and song. 

The feathered songsters have gone and with them, 
the myriad creeping, crawling and winged insects that 
joined the drowsy night chorus. They, too, are still. 

The trees alone give forth soft whisperings, the voice 
of the woods. 

Every breath of the west wind awakens a rustle and 
murmur among the rugged oaks, the stately chestnuts, 
the gaunt pines and hemlocks. The spruces down in 
the swamp hiss as they sway in the caressing breezes. 

There is a tang in the air even when a hazy calm 
hangs over the swales and ridges. 

The lazy sun rises over the Lake, adding its golden 
touch to a picture upon which no color has been spared. 
Yellow, red, orange and purple are splashed on every 
grove and thicket. The slender white birch glistens in 
graceful columns along the banks of the dark streams. 

Only the evergreens have resisted. Even so their 
dark tops proclaim them and give them utterance no 
less pronounced than their gaudy neighbors. 

This is the season that bids us, unafraid, be out of 
doors. 

Out-of-doors ! How weak and meaningless a term 
to express the glory and the wonder of mountain woods 
in the fall ! 

Man builds him a shelter to shield his frail body 
against the sun, the rains and the wind, upon which 
all else that lives thrives and is happy. Forthwith, he 
divides all the earth into two parts : his little corner 
and that which is outside. 

But there are those who rebel. They who know that 
the sun is hot only to those who will not let its warmth 
touch them ; who delight in the rough but friendly play of 
boisterous winds ; -who bare their faces to the life-giving 
rains and go forth in search of wholesome adventure. 

1 



MINNISINK CAMP 



Only a little while and the soft snow will turn a fresh 
page that Nature may -write a new chapter for her 
lovers to read. Now we shall see what other characters 
she will put in the story. 

A deer has crossed here. He is headed for the pine 
Darrens where better acorns may be found among the 
scrub. 

Now we come upon the zig-zaggmg tracks of ruffed 
grouse. If we follow, we may come upon them feeding 
among the wintergreen berries on the sun side of a 
ridge. 

A snow-shoe rabbit has been playing tag with him- 
self among these alders and rhododendron. If we watch 
closely, we may discover him, his white body flattened 
against the whiter snow, waiting for us to pass by. 

His small brown cousin has been about during the 
night but his track leads beneath the root of a fallen 
pine. He knows better than to sit outside to be picked 
up by a roving fox or slinking wild-cat. 

They, too, have been here. The firm, rounded print 
of the big tawney cats cushioned feet contrast widely 
with the carelessly lifted paw of the red fox. 

Down by the edge of the swamp, you stop short and 
grasp your rifle tighter. You have come upon the fan- 
shaped, hand-like track of the black bear. Never fear. 
His keen nose and sharp ear have warned him of your 
coming long before you might have seen him. He 
has pushed his broad shoulders through the thickest 
laurel deep into the swamp. 

You have seen enough for today. The sun has almost 
set and the woods know no friends at night. The wind 
is sweeping little puffs of drift snow across the black 
ice on the lake as you cross. 

Through the dim outline of white birch, on the farther 
shore, a light gleams to welcome you. In a moment, 
you are penitent. A word, unspoken, has weaned your 
spirit from the wild : 



The Cabin. " 



. BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



High Knob 



HIGH Knob is a mountain with a mission. In spite 
of its name, it is not very nigh albeit it has the 
distinction of being the highest point in Pennsylvania. 
A knob it surely is, swelling above the dull level of 
the eastern spur of the Pocono ridge like a fungus 
growth on a fallen oak tree. Its rounded dome sug- 
gests no thought of altitude, yet from its summit is 
to be had the most glorious view in the State so far 
as sheer distance is concerned. In that stretch of 
lake and forest denuded in the greater part of the 
virgin pine and hemlock that once enriched its swales 
and ridges, there still roam the deer and the bear 
alone of all the company of antlered and fur robed 
creatures that once drank of its amber streams or 
splashed in the sedgy borders of its sombre lakes or 
hid deep within the thatched tangle of its dark swamps. 

Gone are the elk, the 
moose, the panther and 
the wolf. The lumber 
jacks fifty years ago ac- 
counted for all of these 
that had been spared by 
the arrow of the Minsi 
warrior or the long rifle 
of the trapper and back- 
woodsman. Of the 
lesser animals, there 
remain the wildcat who 
makes the wet spring 
nights hideous with his 
unearthly scream ; the 
sly red and grey foxes, 
the racoon, the Canad- 
ian snow-shoe rabbit or 

mountain jack who 
puts on his white coat 
of protection when the 
snow bends down the 




MINNISINK CAMP 



rhododendron and scrub oak; the brown rabbit and the 
squirrels, red and grey. Among the fur bearers are the 
skunk, the mink and the muskrat, and until just recent- 
ly, the otter. Some of the streams show evidence that 
beaver were here at one time. All the common birds 
are to be found while the ruffed grouse and wild duck 
are in sufficient number to entice many bird hunters in 
the fall months. 

High Knob is a sullen, sulky sort of an eminence. 
Although it claims no attention from the tourist, the 
railroad or the summer hotel, it commands a view the 
entire outer rim of which consists of some of the most 
frequented mountain sections of three states. Along 
the southern horizon is the long misty line of the 
Blue Ridge, dipping in the centre where Culver s Gap 
provides a pass from upper Jersey into the Dingman s 
Ferry country, twenty odd miles above the abrupt V 
that marks the Delaware Water Gap. To the east, 
some fifty miles away, a clear sky will reveal the 
Catskill Mountains in New York. North is the Sullivan 
County region of that State and the picturesque upper 
reaches of the Delaware River. On the west is Mt. 
Pocono s rough shoulder, the western fortress of this 
twenty mile embankment that nature has thrown up 
against attack north and south by railroad or highway. 
The very hub of this mountain and lake mecca of the 
summer boarder, this lonely old hermit bump in 
the Alleghenies holds itself serenely aloof from all of 
them, full twenty miles from the nearest railroad. 
Knob though it is, undignified by any name a mountain 
might be proud to own, not even referred to as a 
mountain ; known among its friends as the Knob, 
a nickname betokening as much real affection as Bill, 
or "Pop,' or Doc, other well known characters in these 
woods, this mountain, we repeat, has a real mission. 

The Matterhorn is said to be the most satisfying 
mountain in the world. It has the precise effect upon 
the beholder that any well regulated mountain should 
have as per prospectus. It inspires in the human breast 
a feeling of admiration and of awe, perhaps something 

4 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



also of fear. But it is one of many, arrogantly claiming 
recognition by virtue of its very magnificence as a 
spectacle. If it should be flattened out, as it probably 
will be in a million years, the hotels, Swiss guides and 
photographers would merely pack up, move a few miles 
up the road and open shop on the instep of another giant. 

High Knob, on the other hand, inspires you as the 
bubbling spring does the thirsty woodsman, or the smell 
of bacon crisping over a wood nre inspires the heavy 
footed hunter of a bleak November night. For it is 
the high calling of the Knob to play the part — (no, that 
has a hollow, make-believe sound) — to live the life of 
a good friend. It is your homely but good-hearted neigh- 
bor. It does not thrust itself upon you and so it is 
always welcome. If you are in doubt as to your way 
in these trackless -woods, you have but to climb the 
nearest pine and High Knob will see you and tell 
you which way to go. If you are not sure which is north 
and which is west, High Knob always knows even if 
the sun does not. If you are lonely and tired as you 
sit cramped up against your old hemlock stump, your 
cold rifle barrel as anxious as you for a glimpse of 
tawney hide that will warm both your hearts, the Knob 
looks down at you calmly and cheers you with its very 
presence. Or if you are thirsty after a hard hour in 
the scrub oak, you may be sure the old mountain has 
sent a stream from its rocky fountains somewhere in 
your direction. For if you will look at a good map 
of Pike County, you will note that the streams all 
seem to radiate from a common centre. If you are 
given to reflection, it will occur to you that there 
must be some high ground that sketched the streams 
on the map like spokes from the hub of a wheel. There 
is, though your map may show no legend to that effect. 
High Knob does not appear in the social register of 
mountains. Your map will not disclose it. But there 
it is whenever you want it, your well beloved coun- 
sellor and friend. 

On the topmost ridge of the Knob, as it is profiled 
against the northwestern sky, there appears to be a 

5 



MINNISINK CAMP 




growth of pine. This is a delusion. There are no 
Dig trees above the second ledge of rock that runs 
diagonally upward around the eastern face of the 
mountain. The top is covered with low scrub and 
huckleberry hushes. What you took to he a tall pine 
is only a wind dwarfed nubbin of a tree about ten 
feet high. It seems high from the distance you were 
away because it stands almost alone, as if it had es- 
caped from Indian Swamp at the southwestern base 
and had ever since tried to boast of its temerity by 
pretending to have grown as tall as the slender spruces 
a thousand feet below. That chesty little scrub pine 
has had some of the conceit taken out of it by having a 
napping pennant tied to its scalp lock on the occasion 
of the first visit paid to the summit by a party of hunters 
with whose further exploits these annals are concerned. 
The little pine on the Knob forms the extreme point 
of the skyline and thereby becomes an object of interest. 
It is only the extremes that hold human attention for 
very long. We tire of the commonplace. Around 
the camp fire, after supper is over and the tired crew 
are stretched on floor, chair or cot, it is the unusual, 
the extreme event that forms the topic of conversation. 
The red bresn that tore the ding-busted hide off 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT • 



Hoddys dod-blasted shins when he inadvertently came 
through one end of the Bunnell Barren, was by far the 
worst patch of scrub in the woods. The rock that Dave 
stood on for an hour this morning till his teeth chattered 
so loud he had to build a nre to keep from being shot 
for a wood-pecker, was the coldest rock south of the 
Arctic Circle. The doe that Bill 'coulda spit on" 
was bigger than most bucks ; the swamp that O. H. 
'drove ' was so thick that he had to crawl through 
backwards with his compass in his teeth to keep from 
coming out below where he went m. It is not only 
the fisherman and the Western booster who maltreat 
the superlative. Adjectives are unacquainted with any 
other degree when they go a-campmg. 

The matter of extremes is of interest when you seek 
to analyse the camper. You ride up Fifth Avenue on 
the upper deck of a bus and you note mansion after 
mansion. You are eager to know who lives in each. 
The ordinary brown stone front interests you not at 
all. Your eyes and imagination are for the marble 
and stained glass. Yet if by some freak of municipal 
history an old thatched cottage with a stone chimney 
at one end should survive amid this not of Grecian, 
Italian and Manhattan architecture, you would brush 
the conductor off the platform in your haste to climb 
down and knock at the old oak door. Either extreme, 
no matter which, but the compromise never! It does 
not occur to us that the mansion of one epoch is the 
hovel of another. The wigwam was the envy of the 
man who lived in a cave. The log and mud hut were 
aspired to by the man whose tent had blown into the 
next reservation. The cabin and the chimney place 
of the early settler put the grass and mud architect 
out of business. Then some crude but socially ambi- 
tious pioneering mason built him a stone house and 
so by easy stages, we come to Fifth Avenue. 

Your real camper in one wild plunge into the abyss 
of centuries jumps from the front door step of the gilded 
temple sheer to the day of the cave man or the tent 
dweller. Then if he repeats often enough, you will 

7 



MINNISINK CAMP 




note in him the instincts of the race. He will have 
dishes and a table. In a moment of rashness, he de- 
cides to try a -winter camp which means a tent stove 
if he is to be comfortable. A -winter camp has many 
advantages over summer tenting; there are no daddy- 
long-legs to drop off the ridge pole into your upturned, 
unsuspecting face at the first crack of dawn ; no mos- 
quitoes chase you to the protection of your netting as 
soon as the sun has set; there are no rattlesnakes 
abroad and Pike County, take it from Horace Greeley, 
is noted for these gifted entertainers. 

Against these self evident advantages, the -winter 
camp has two disadvantages, neither of which, however, 
are serious ones. The days are short, and you can t 
build a roaring log fire in a twelve by twelve canvas 
tent. You miss this latter comforter in the long winter 
evenings. Finally one evening, just as you snuggle 
into your particular groove under the blankets, you say, 
Bill, -what this camp needs is an open fire place. 

Bill agrees with you. You do not know it, but you 
have started zigzagging back toward the stone house 
with doors and windows and steam heat. And the 
first step in this evolutionary process is the permanent 
cabin. 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



The Cabin 

THE Minnisink Hunting and Fishing Club had its 
beginning at least sixteen years ago when Bill and 
O. H. set out one May evening with a blanket apiece, 
for the Perkiomen Creek. That first night was spent 
on Mother Earth under a very crude shelter of green 
boughs that oozed and dripped dew and red ants till 
morning brought a blessed relief to aching joints. 
A year or two after, the regular summer camping trips 
to Big Spring above Dingmans Ferry began. Then 
one summer, our now experienced campers made a 
pioneer prospecting trip back to Peck s Dam, sleeping 
two nights without shelter on the ground where the 
Cabin now stands. 

There followed some four years of tenting during 
the open deer season in a little sheltered pocket about 
two hundred yards west of the Cabin site. Visitors 
were taken along, the genial Doc, quiet but hard- 
working "Wawa," while "Dave" and Hoddy made an 
annual visit from their camp down at Mud Pond. 
In those days it was forbidden to erect a permanent 
structure in the State forests. Then the law was 
amended, or maybe it was only a departmental ruling. 
Anyway, permission to lease an acre of land and erect 
a building was to be had. The cabin idea now took 
definite shape. It was to be built by our own hands 
and was to stand on the "Point, the little open piece 
of ground made famous by the original bivouac where 
Bill and O. H. lay in a pouring rain and fought mos- 
quitoes through two long nights. 

The first "official trip was made by Hoddy and 
Bill who met John Avery, the Forester in charge, and 
surveyed our "claim/ Then the crowd gathered and 
spent several sessions trying to convince our ambitious 
architect that six amateur stone masons couldn t build 
an all stone cabin in much less than six years. With 
unfeigned reluctance, Horace consented to draw plans 
for a frame cabin with a rough stone fireplace. Bill 
and O. H. thereupon elected themselves stone masons. 

9 



MINNISINK CAMP 



The plans of the nre 
place ana chimney were 
drawn by O. H. who 
jotted down notes from 
a work on bungalow 
architecture found in a 
down-town New York 
book store, said book 
being priced at $5.00. 
(Name and address of 
store will be mailed on 
application, also sug- 
gestions how to extract 
useful but costly infor- 
mation without any 
great outlay of capital.) 
The time set for 
building operations 
wasthe week begin- 
ning with Labor Day, 
1914. No need to de- 
scribe the uninterest- 
ing but highly important details of preparation. In two 
relays, the gang arrived on the ground at the appointed 
time. Meals were taken at the Hotel de Mrs. Smith. 
1 aken is the word. They were fairly snatched. Corned 
beef melted away like the choicest sirloin. Fried pota- 
toes, bread and apple sauce became total strangers to 
the Smith garbage can. The Smithian swine went on 
a forced diet for a week. When the "cows came home, 
milk was added to the bill of fare, and it is still a 
common belief among the Smiths that Dave bathes 
in fresh milk. Bill and Matt, our carpenter, ate them- 
selves into immortal fame. 

The Cabin grew rapidly. Working hours were nxed 
by the sun, the laborers sleeping in tents of various 
styles and degrees of ventilation, pitched right on the 
spot. I he weather was perfect; clear cool days and 
cold frosty nights. Daily pictures were made snowing 
the progress of the building from the laying of the 

10 




• BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



foundation piers to the driving of the last nail. The 
carpenters ana the masons organized a debating society 
to decide the following question : 

Resolved, the chimney holds the cabin up. 

The masons took the affirmative, the carpenters the 
negative, the latter claiming the chimney was in con- 
stant danger of falling until they could build that end 
of the cabin to hold it up. The debate ended in a 
draw, and so did the chimney, but both the cabin and 
the chimney are still standing. Matt s life was m 
constant danger for he persisted in referring to the 
edifice as the shack. 

Modesty forbids any lengthy description of the fire- 
place. The best thing to be said about it is that it 
works, 'and don t you doubt it, as Roe Heller fre- 
quently remarks. It is built to stay. The foundation 
is six feet square, resting upon solid rock, four feet 
below the surface. These dimensions are maintained 
until the level of the hearth stone is reached. This 
remarkable slab was discovered about a mile up the 
Hawley Road tilted slightly and presenting an even 
surface on both sides. It was six feet by eleven and 
with an average thickness of four inches, weighing prob- 
ably half a ton. Smith s horse was mustered into 
service to haul it to the Cabin where it was cut into 
shape with much labor and a cold chisel after it was 
too dark to work laying up stone. 

The mantel is a chestnut oak log with the bark on the 
outside and hewn flat with an ordinary axe, an artistic 
job in itself. Matt was the artist. The flue is lined 
with twelve-inch terra cotta sewer pipe. As it stands, the 
nre-place is a monument to unskilled open-shop labor, 
the entire work having been planned and finished by two 
men who never laid a stone or handled a mason s trowel 
in their lives before. At least one of them can testify 
that it was a week before his stone bruised and cement 
burned hands were able to shove a pen with their accus- 
tomed ease and his back was a full month in getting 
the kinks out. The completed job, the pride of the 
camp, is worth all it cost in epidermis and elbow grease. 

11 



MINNISINK CAMP • 



After supper you pile her full of oak logs, gather 
round in a rough unformed circle, nil your old jimmy 
pipes, and the woods can furnish no more nomelike 
or comfortable enjoyment. The old fire-place seems 
to say, 

Come, let us draw up and smoke ; you smoke and 
I 11 draw up. 

Dave takes down his banjo and in a vigorous tenor, 
punctuated with puffs, he warns us to Come away 
from dat window, or recounts the unfortunate fate 
of his family since he was a student at Cadiz/' 

Of course some credit must also be given the amateur 
carpenters. They got the roof on so that it stays and 
although some of the battens let in a million dollars 
worth of air, who cares? The Cabin is well planned 
and substantially built, standing thirty by fifteen feet. 
It has seven windows of four panes each and two 
doors. There is a half story attic, which serves the 
same purpose as the attics at home — a store house for 
junk. When there is extra company, the overflow 
goes up stairs to bed, using a swinging white birch 
ladder. An artistic railing of the same beautiful wood 
keeps one from falling off on to the dinner table below. 
Goodness knows that table has enough to bear up 
under. A poor, half starved statistician who never 
hunted deer or swung an axe in winter woods is au- 
thority for the statement that the average man con- 
sumes about seventy box car loads of food in a life- 
time. Why that old white oil-cloth covered table of ours 
sees that much grub every fall. And where does that 
grub come from? 

From the kitchen of course. We have left that until 
the last although it is by far the most important depart- 
ment of any well regulated camping party. 

George, the colored cook, lives in the kitchen which 
is boarded off from the main living and sleeping room. 
The chief piece of furniture is an old out door army 
range which came to Pike County on Roe Heller s 
lumber wagon, with ideas of its own about drawing 
through a regulation stove pipe. Such battles we did 

12 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



have that first year with friend kitchen stove ! George 
Green, our nrst cook, had an unfortunate habit of 
rising about 4 A. M. to stoke up for breakfast. In a 
few moments, thick clouds of suffocating smoke filled 
the whole Cabin until one by one, we came up for air, 
and went out doors mostly in neglige. Freezing, by 
comparison, is a comfortable death to die. 

That is, everybody sought the outer undiluted ozone 
except Hoddy and Dave who surely will exhaust the 
ingenuity of his Satanic Majesty to make them choke 
on ordinary smoke. After many mornings of experi- 
menting and profanity, we learned that the stove stops 
smoking as soon as the outside pipe is warm. So 
we had a door put m the first joint in which to insert 
a newspaper to heat her up. Give Foddy McDowell 
credit for that idea. 

The kitchen boasts all the comforts of home and some 
that home never thought of. Let no unsophisticated 
tenderfoot or female of the species imagine that one 
lives out of a tin can while in the woods. It is only your 
greenhorn or lazy camper who cooks his meal with 
a can opener. Of course there are tins, plenty of them, 
in this semi-cowless forest, but they bear labels that 
no self-respecting housewife would feel ashamed of. 

And here let us remark that the hunter or fisherman 
who tents it, and knows how, does not relish or tolerate 
any unnecessary discomforts, culinary or otherwise. 
He does not roll m a blanket on the ground (although 
that is the warmest way to sleep) nor does he toss 
flap jacks in a frying pan. He does not squat on the 
ground and eat his meals picnic style. Those who 
think all these picturesque (?) performances are com- 
mon among campers get their information from the 
pictures in hysterical magazine love stories. The 
illustrated catalogue of a good sporting goods store will 
disillusion anyone as to the paraphernalia and habits 
of the woodsman. There are degrees and differences 
in the living standards and methods of men in the 
woods just as there are between men in the brown stone 
palaces and their brothers in squalid brick. 

13 



MINNISINK CAMP 





-■ w. -B-^^n^^^H 




I 




: '-* 2 , 


.- 


!-* ^I^Sh 




'i "*< 1 &~ ■ 


1 


ill 

■ 







And so our kitchen contains all the stock groceries 
and vegetables you might be proud to find, these 
high cost of living days, in your own pantry. But we live 
even tetter than you do. Hunting is hard work and the 
keen November and December air has just as pro- 
nounced an effect below one s diaphragm as above it. 
Our larder is therefore stocked with the best that can 
be bought and hauled the twenty odd miles back into 
the mountain. In the spring, there are trout; in the 
summer and fall, slim bellied pickerel and in the 
winter pheasants, rabbits, wild duck and deer liver. 
The venison itself is always taken home intact save 
for the innards. Deer liver, as only Bill can cook it, 
is a treat unknown to the city dwelling epicure. 

There was one famous dinner in the old tenting days 
which inspired one of the party to trochaic quatrameter. 
Two neighbors, encamped by the Spring, shot their 
first buck over near Hemlock and being tenderfeet, 
they staggered the seven miles back under their 
burden, at least fifty pounds the heavier because they 
didn't think to remove the inside furniture on the spot. 
The meter is somewhat suggestive of Longfellow, but 
well print it here for the first time purely for the sake 
of the moral : — 

14 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



. . . .And the Hunters toiling homeward, 
Brought the deer with all his blood in ; 
Lights and liver, heart and kidneys ; 
Came they from the Swamp of Hemlock, 
Seven weary miles of labor, 
Knowing not that they were bone-heads. 
Then up rose Old Bill, the Boy Scout, 
He the butcher, cook and baker, 
Said, I 11 snatch that gory liver; 
We will feed our guests upon it, 
End the days of fast and watching 
For Pot-meat-a, the white swamp hare. 
For Cant-hit-em, the hen pheasant. 
So he took his trusty snicker, 
Ripped the red buck through the mid-rif 
Till he found a three pound liver 
That had urged the red deer onward 
Where the gentle doe had lingered 
In the swamp to wait his coming. 
In the pot, Bill placed the trophy. 
Till the blood and evil passions 
All had left the crimson slices. 
In the pan with hissing bacon, 
On My-nl-las heated bosom 
Fell the tender slabs of fresh meat, 
Filling all the woods with perfume. 
Came the guests unto the feasting, 
Came with joy into the tepee 
On each face the look of hunger, 
Fell they then upon the muffins, 
Drank the broth of tails of oxen. 
Ate the green herbs from Turn Villa. 
But the best of all that banquet 
Was the liver of the ten prong 
That had roamed the swales and thickets 
Through the red brush and the laurel. 
Then they smoked the pipe of plenty, 
Smoked the peace-pipe, smoked Tux-e-do 
I hough their own game tree was barren, 
Said the Hunters, 'We should worry !" 
15 



MINNISINK CAMP- 



Peck s 

r^ELIGHTFUL as the Cabin is in the spring and 
-*-^ summer — the woods are always beautiful — it was 
built principally as a hunting lodge. Our women folks 
have the time of their lives trying to civilize the place 
over an occasional week-end or summer holiday, and 
Ave are grateful even to the extent of tolerating a cur- 
tained off corner of the living room. But the cabin 
is essentially the home and property of the eight more 
or less determined deer hunters who comprise the 
Minnismk Hunting and Fishing Club. The traveller 
who has the courage to walk, drive or motor up the 
riawley Road (familiarly known among Pecks Pond 
fraternity as the 'pike ) will see a small sign-board 
nailed to a pine tree at the entrance of our lane which 
modestly informs him that the M. H. and F. C. is 
located hereabouts. We boast no high wire fence in 
which to enclose trained deer for target practice but 
we are a bit jealous of our patch of oak, chestnut, pine 
and white birch. The latter beautiful tree is very 
bountifully distributed all about us and there are no 
lovelier or more graceful specimens than those which 
grow at the edge of the lake beside the Cabin. 

Peck s is an artificial lake overflowing what was once 
a large irregularly shaped swamp, The State construc- 
ted a dam breast about one hundred feet long and 
about ten feet high, just below the junction of the 
headwaters of the Big Bushkill Creek and the East 
Branch. The result is a body of water, comparatively 
shallow, roughly L shaped, some four miles long to 
the north and two miles long to the east with Pinchot 
Island set in the angle. Dead pines and clumps of 
various kinds of amphibious vegetation growing all 
over the surface give the pond a particularly desolate 
and unkempt appearance. This condition is offset by 
the numerous islands all of which are picturesque and 
interesting, especially Rattlesnake Island. Pickerel, 
catnsh, sunfish and carp abound. 



16 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



The lake and the clearing where Pecks Mill once 
stood is the huh of all this country. Some of the 
old stone foundations or the sawmill are still intact 
and a jumble of hemlock sawlogs lie rotting in the 
basin that was once the mill dam. From this as a 
general centre, several old lumber trails radiate. 
Some of these are so completely overgrown as to be 
practically obliterated. Others are used by hunters in 
passing through the otherwise trackless woods and 
thickets, and they can be followed with comparative 
ease in the winter when the leaves are down. The 
best denned of the old roads is the Taylor Creek road 
which bears southwest to the Big Indian Swamp and 
beyond. The Hobdy Road runs about due west around 
the Knob. Even a rough lumber wagon would find 
the going difficult in this rocky region, but to the 
tired hunter, with his hands and face bleeding from 
fighting his way through the red bresh and his legs 
tired from climbing over 
and around the up-ended 



rocks in the swales, these 
winding, uneven trails are 
as welcome as the Mil- 
ford Pike is to the auto- 
mobilist. 

In addition to the old 
lumber trails, there are 
many other land marks 
which guide us in our 
daily tramps. The coun- 
try over which we roam in 
deer season extends from 
two to eight miles in every 
direction from the Cabin. 
To the southwest, there 
is a long, well defined 
rocky ledge which paral- 
lels the Taylor Creek road. 
This we have named the 
Southwest Ridge. If you 




17 



MINNISINK CAMP 



turn off the road to the west and follow the swales 
beyond the ridge, you will come to the Little Indian 
Swamp. But if you wish to change your course back 
to the road by bearing to the left up over the ridge 
before you ^et to the swamp, you ■will find yourself 
entangled in the worst thicket that Pike, or any other 
county can boast of. This is the terrible John Bunnell 
Barren. Here the growth of scrub oak is about eight 
feet high and so thick as to almost defy a passage. 
But it can be done. Ask Hoddy. 

Going on, out the Taylor Creek Road, you may take 
either an ill-defined branch to the south to Big Pine 
Flats, or else go straight west to the Maple Opening 
in the Big Indian, famous for its bear harbors. All 
the way from the Cabin, full five miles to the swamp, 
the road has been winding around knolls, through 
stunted oak growth and a few pines that the woods- 
men have left us. All of it is good deer country and 
many a fallen buck has taken his last journey along 
the rough lane, borne on the stalwart shoulders of 
those who have laid him low. 

As we put the setting sun at our backs and push 
toward camp, we notice a dark green spot in the tree 
tops below us to the east, about a mile from home. 
This is the Huffman Swamp, a little gem, from which 
the clear waters of Fox Run slip to join the Bushkill. 
This miniature swamp became famous one November 
morning when "Wawa" dogged it for half an hour, 
thinking he was driving Hogback for Bill and O. H., 
who were on their stands at that favorite spot. 

The Hogback Swamp lies along the west bank of 
the Bushkill and gets its name from the smoothly 
rounded ridge which runs into it from the west. It 
was from this swamp that a fine black bear emerged 
one snowy morning to be greeted with five shots from 
a .303 Savage. He proved that a fat bear can stand 
lots of lead for he carried his well ventilated pelt full 
seven bloody miles only to be taken by another more 
fortunate party of hunters. 



18 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



Peace to his ashes ! The bunch of black hair and the 
gory branches we brought home as souvenirs are all 
the visible evidence we have to show lor our exciting 
morning. Even the big pine that O. H. stood beside 
while 'holding on hlm, ,, has fallen a victim to a northern 
gale and lies there to crumble into red dust for the 
pheasant to sun himself in. 

Starting again, another morning, we may go up the 
Hawley Road, turning to the left, back of Smiths. 
Straight in leads to Rake Run and its series of open 
swamps. To the right, up over the hill, lies Major 
Swamp, one of the worst of the region in its confusing 
lack of consistent direction. There is a passage at its 
western end through the White Birch opening that leads 
down to a smaller swamp often used as a harbor by 
bear and deer. This smaller swamp gives rise to the 
Tarkill, a small but beautiful trout stream which flows 
into Peck s. 

If, instead of going north, we should start to the south 
along the Hawley Road, we bear to the right and cross 
the Bushkill either at the upper crossing, or if we intend 
to hunt back of Hogback, we use the lower Hickory 
Crossing where the amber waters of the creek are 
bridged by a fallen tree. 

The most alluring section of all from the hunter s 
viewpoint is that lying beyond the East Branch Swamps 
in the region of Bald Hill. Here is Wolf Swamp and 
Grassy Swale, the scene of a memorable afternoon 
which will be the subject of further annals. East of 
Wolf Swamp is the thicket through which we pass 
to reach Hemlock Pond and its promising solitudes. 
If any novice wishes to demonstrate his ability to find 
his way about in this country or test his sense of 
direction, let him try to find Hemlock Swamp ! Woe 
is his if it begins to snow and he is -without a compass. 
He will spend the night in the woods if not the better 
part of his entire trip. For High Knob and its beckoning 
summit cannot be seen through the snow. 

A light tracking snow, well packed, say three or 
four inches deep, is welcome in deer season. It is 

19 



MINNISINK CAMP 



then that all animals re- 
cord their presence and 
movements. Old deer 
hunters claim they can 
distinguish easily be- 
tween the hoof prints of 
the Duck and the doe, 
but — just between us — 
we don t believe they can. 
A large track always ap- 
peals to the imagination, 
and it is generally attribu- 
ted to a buck as big as 
a cow. 

The writer, one late 
November afternoon, was 
pulling toward home 
around Hogback Swamp. 
There was a six-inch snow 
on the ground which dead- 
ened all sound, espec- 
ially if one wore mocas- 
sins. Coming quietly over the top of a low ridge, I saw 
a large doe standing just below me not twenty yards 
away. She was listening intently, her nose pointed 
toward Bill, who was some hundred yards or so farther 
up in the woods and out of sight. Finally, she moved 
off quietly and crossed the Bushkill. An examination 
of her track showed all the so called characteristics 
of a big buck. Or another case. I was on a stand near 
White Birch opening in the Major Swamp when three 
deer came directly up to me before seeing me — two 
does, one larger than the other, and a buck fawn. They 
stopped suddenly and made a beautiful picture — the 
two does with nostrils dilated and ears extended as 
they gazed at me nxedly with their magnificent eyes. 
The little buck stood between, paying no attention 
whatever, but absolutely motionless, content to leave 
all the worrying to his mother and aunt. At a motion 
from me, they ■were off like a flash, first giving a 

20 




BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



prodigious snort. There was a good tracking snow, 
and soon three experienced hunter friends came along 
following the trail. They asked 11 I had seen the deer, 
a Dig buck, a doe and a fawn. So much for deer 
tracks. 




21 



MINNISINK CAMP- 



Deer Hunting 

TIJ'OR two days or more, there has been a succession 
■■- of rumbles and bumps up the Hawley Road. 
Tomorrow, the season opens, and the hunters are 
coming in. There is the usual crowd at Smiths, proba- 
bly a dozen in all. Scotty s crowd came in yesterday, 
Rem, Joe, John, Jonie and Scotty, himself. Dale is 
down at the Spring with a new buddy. The 'father- 
in-law bunch have just arrived, five of them. Peck s 
has mobilized its little army of corduroy and khaki- 
clad, red capped riflemen for the annual foray. There 
is no time for visiting yet. All is bustle as wagons are 
unpacked, wood fetched in, and nres started. Since 
the law has permitted cabins in these woods, the fa- 
miliar sound of tent peg driving, with its accompanying 
profanity, is no longer heard in the land. Trying to 
drive a white birch peg through a half ton rock, neatly 
covered with four inches of top sou, is a diversion 
calculated to ruin anyone s disposition. 

The day has been calm and not unpleasantly warm, 
the last gasp of an Indian Summer. As the sun begins 
to sink behind Southwest Ridge, only the Knob shows 
up clear in the waning light. Soon it, too, grows 
purple as the sun goes down back of the notch, and 
the short day draws to a close. Columns of bluish 
white smoke drift straight up through the taller oaks 
as the camp cooks prepare the evening meal. The 
sound of a good axe rings clear as the blade bites into 
the red oak log. 

What music is sweeter than that of steel as it strikes 
into hard timber of a clear crisp November evening? 
It suggests the fireside circle of whole-hearted, strong 
muscled friends ; the roaring logs and the crisping 
bacon. It is heard at its best as you come within hear- 
ing distance of your cabin after a trying day in the 
woods, especially if you have been lost just previously 
in the red bresh/ 1 

You are tired as you finish your chores the first night 
in. Your back and arms have grown soft, you nnd. 

22 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



You are glad to ■wash up at last and take your place 
at the table while George carries in stacks of boiled 
potatoes, fried nam and stewed onions, to be raided 
as soon as you nave finished your steaming bowl of 
ox-tail soup. You drink your tea finally, draw around 
the fireplace and lay plans for tomorrow. 

You decide at last that it would be best for trie 
whole crowd to go to favorite stands depending 
upon tne relatively large number of hunters in the 
woods to keep tne deer moving. Parrott will go to 
the Hogback ; Doc and Dave prefer Hickory Crossing. 
Bill will climb his pet tree at tne Three Birches. 
Hoddy, George and Wawa will try their luck along 
tne High Rock Ledge. O. H. thinks the upper 
crossing as good a place as any. Everything agreed 
upon, you finally crawl under the blankets at 9.30, 
the little old alarm clock being set to sputter its stupid 
brains out at 4.30. 

Which it does. Everybody hears it except Dave and 
Hoddy who must have been born in a boiler factory. 
There is a muffled grunt or two, each waiting for the 
other to test the temperature which is at least 42° 
below zero around your particular cot. Soon George 
comes in with some kindling wood, and under the 
influence of a roaring fire, you get up and dress. Break- 
fast over, you begin to put on all the clothes that hang 
within reach. You wont have been on your stand an 
hour before you have wondered why you didn t put 
on a few more. 

Arrived at your stand, just as the sun peeps through 
the pines on the eastern ridges, you brush the frost 
orr the leaves and settle yourself as comfortably as 
possible against a tree or rock, or any other protection 
available. Or you may climb a tree or mount a rock 
on the ridge. Now there is a peculiar atmospheric 
condition that is met with in still hunting — the higher 
the sun rises, the colder it becomes. When you reach 
your spot, it cannot possibly be colder than 76°. You 
carelessly throw off your mackmaw, stuff your gloves 
in your pocket and light your pipe. In half an hour, 

23 



• MINNISINK CAMP 



you button your sweater. Next you pull the sleeves 
far down over your wrists. Then you try to sit on your 
feet. If you have your heavy Dig woolen gloves, you 
force them over the toes of your hunting boots. No, 
that wont do ; we 11 wrap the mackinaw around our legs. 
Still it would be better to put it on. Mind you, all this 
time you refuse to admit, even to yourself, that you 
are getting cold. Isn't the sun getting higher all the 
time? Ugh! That was a real shiver. You stand up, 
lay your rifle down carefully and work your legs a bit. 
In another hour, if you don't have a fire going between 
some protecting rocks, you are dancing up and down, 
beating your arms about you with as much chance of 
having a deer come your way as holding a women s 
suffrage meeting on Bunnell Barren. One by one, 
as the day begins to fade, the hunters start home 
until all are in save Bill and O. H., who usually get 
warm by taking succesive stands farther and farther 
away. By sundown, they, too, show up and the first 
fruitless day draws to a close. 

Around the fire, after the cold rifle barrels are rubbed 
down, there is a swapping of the day's experiences. 
One saw a doe, another a flash of a nag that was 
probably a buck. (All deer but partially seen are bucks) 
A gray squirrel running through the leaves gave some- 
body buck fever. Somebody else flushed six pheasants 
that seemed to know you can't hit them with a rifle, 
etc., etc. But nobody got a shot. 

So far as we are aware, still hunting for deer in 
Pennsylvania has had no known influence on litera- 
ture or philosophy. Yet there is no other sport or 
occupation that should be more conducive to pro- 
found thought and clear reasoning. Every inspiration 
that nature affords is about you, as you sit musing 
on your fallen log; the clear crisp air; the clean smell 
of the woods ; the little nameless birds that visit you, 
quite unafraid ; the squirrels that come about after 
you have been quiet long enough to have gained their 
confidence — all the little folk of the wood, in fact, 
entertain you as you keep your vigil. You look at the 

24 

I 



• BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



trees and study the characteristics that distinguish one 
from the other. You wonder what sights they have seen 
through the many seasons they have stood there. 
That little sapling yonder has of a certainty beheld a 
sight that would at this moment thrill your heart for 
its bark is all pulled off two feet from the ground up 
where a buck has rubbed his rack during the night. 

If you are on a high ridge and can look across at High 
Knob, you try to picture what changes the centuries 
have rubbed and worn into that old mountain. At 
intervals, you hear rifle shots, some near but mostly 
far off, often followed by two or three more in rapid 
succession. As the reverberant echoes die away, you 
seem to see a party of hunters come up to the fallen 
buck, straighten him out, admire his rack and calculate 
his weight. Too bad sight will not keep pace with 
hearing, or you might have enjoyed seeing that fellow 
miss the tin can quite as much as the other two chaps 
did who hit it. 

But hark! You heard an unusual sound then. You 
can distinctly hear your own heart thump as you finger 
the safety on your rifle to be sure that all is ready. 
You listen intently, fairly holding your breath. A puff 
of wind rustles the leaves and you hear the mysterious 
noise again. You look up and note a bare spot on the 
limb of a dead chestnut. Your deer turns out to have 
been a very common but harmless creature, the tree 
squeak. Shucks ! This is no place anyway. No 

deer has crossed here in ten years. You get up, 
knock the ashes out of your pipe and move a quarter 
of a mile further down. In ten minutes a four prong 
buck walks by the log on which you have been musing 
for half a day. 

Tomorrow, we will drive the lower point. Several 
beds have been seen and the deer are surely in there, 
bo Doc, Pop and three others take stands along the 
old road clean down to Hickory. Giving them half 
an hour start, Bill, Dave and Wawa go in the fire line 
and begin the drive. Each has a cow-bell tied around 
leg or arm, and as the three move forward in a line, 

25 



MINNISINK CAMP • 



separated by a hundred 
yards, they give more or 
less fancy imitations of 
hounds on the trail. 
Educated deer are ex- 
pected to fall for this de- 
ception, and rush madly 
to escape via Hickory 
Crossing, there to fall 
easy victims to the un- 
erring rifles of the five 
convalescents just over 
a bad case of duck fever. 
Nothing doing. Perhaps 
a doe is seen but the 
buck have other engage- 
ments and leave their 
regrets. 

For the benefit of all 
kmdhearted but mis- 
guided friends who offer 
their sympathies (and 
scorn) to the empty handed hunter, he it said that your 
true fisherman or sportsman has just as enjoyable a 
day whether he brings back game or not. His pleasure 
is in the sport, not the score. Naturally, he is the 
more pleased when he is successful, but it is not 
necessary that he always win to be happy. He is con- 
tent to play fair and abide by the rules, taking keen 
delight in the strength, skill and cunning of the quarry 
against which he matches his wits. 

In concluding these random pages with the story 
of a more successful day, it is also in order to correct 
a few delusions under which most of our good sisters, 
wives, mothers and sweethearts labor. I suppose 
every tender hearted woman has the same idea about 
deer hunting. 

Oh, how can you shoot the beautiful creatures!" 
How can you men be so cruel! ' — and other such. 




26 



• BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



In their gentle minds, they have pictured a sylvan 
dell, with the three trees and beeyootrful bubbling 
spring at which the lordly deer (about the size of a 
horse) comes to quench his royal thirst at high noon. 
You wait to "catch" him with your gun in one hand 
and a "bullet" in the other. As he steps to the spring, 
he looks at you reproachfully out of his luminous eyes, 
and turning to his doe with eight or nine spotted 
fawns (the sweet little things) about her, he seems 
to say, "Fear not, the dreadful man, though he never 
washes or shaves while in camp, will not harm us. 

BANG ! 

You have shot him through the heart, immediately 
pouncing upon his fallen form to rip his throat open 
with that awful knife while you utter war whoops and 
frighten all the little deer to death. Not so, ladies, not 
by a million years. Not since the cavemen brained 
mountain lions on High Knob to make clothes that their 
wives might follow correct Mmnismk fashion. Listen 
to this story of a typical deer hunt. 

After several days in the woods, the first year the 
Cabin was built, our game tree was still barren despite 
the hardest kind of work from daylight to dark. Deer 
had been seen but, unfortunately, none had horns. 
So we planned a visit to Hemlock Swamp. Bill and 
Horace left early to take stands near Wolf Swamp, 
while O. H. undertook to steer a driving party, consist- 
ing of Dave and Walter and himself. The drivers got 
lost and did a few circles before getting to the other 
two at Wolf Swamp. They were located about ten in the 
morning and the whole party then moved over to 
Hemlock Pond, shooting a large white jack rabbit on 
the way. Some exploring was done around this famous 
spot. Lunch was eaten beside the cheering warmth of 
a friendly fire after which stands were taken. 

At about two o clock, new plans were made. Bill 
would stay at the point above the Swamp until say half 
past three. O. H., as assistant guide, was to start 
back with the others, posting them along Grassy 
Swale and Wolf Swamp. Bill would then leave at the 

27 



MINNISINK CAMP 



predetermined time and pick O. H. up ; they, in turn, 
would come to Walter and so on back, the idea being 
to reach the Hawley Road about dark. The effect of 
this kind of hunting is that some one of the party is 
always moving, with the possibility of starting a deer 
which might then come upon one of the hunters. When 
deer are aroused, they follow no definite habits. Often, 
they go out ahead of the hunter unseen, but they are 
just as apt to sneak around him and go in the opposite 
direction. Something of the sort happened on this 
particular afternoon. 

The writer had reached his position between Grassy 
Swale and Wolf Swamp about three o clock, choosing 
a fair sized rock on the side of a low ridge against 
which I nestled in the leaves, my rifle across my knees. 
Walter stopped a half mile further on, Horace and 
Dave going on beyond the Swamp. The afternoon 
was clear and calm, somewhat cool but with no snow. 
1 had been quiet about half an hour when 1 saw a 
movement in the scrub about a hundred yards to 
my left. In a moment, I made out the form of a deer 
but was uncertain as to the sex. lie quickly removed 
all doubt by lowering a nne antlered head, snifnng the 
leaves like a dog hunting a scent. However, he was 
in such a thick growth as to be almost invisible, and 
save for the instant he lowered his head, I saw no part 
of his body at which to aim. 

What ones heart does on such an occasion is past 
belief. For days you may have toiled unceasingly, 
fighting your way through dense swamps in the hope 
of driving a deer to one of your camp mates posted on 
the outer edge. Through miles and miles of tangled 
scrub oak, you have pushed, backed, scratched and torn 
your painful progress to reach a favorite ridge. There 
you have sat and shivered the cold day through but 
all in vain. Now, at last, you seem about to be re- 
warded. No such feelings as move you when you 
gaze upon the caged animal are yours now, as you strain 
every sense and nerve lest a sound or false motion 
betray your presence to the wild creature before you. 

28 



• BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



There is an absolute stillness save for the thumping 
of your heart ana your quick breathing. You ana the 
deer are alone upon earth. Sub-consciously, you are 
thinking the same primeval thoughts that must have 
surged through the breast of every Indian hunter who 
roamed these forests centuries before you. Your rifle 
is at your shoulder. Until this moment, the odds have 
been a hundred to one in favor of the deer but now 
the chances are even. It s up to you. 

After a momentary reflection, I concluded it would 
be better to try a lucky shot into the scrub where the 
buck was standing, than to risk his scenting me, and 
■with one leap in the opposite direction, escape without 
even an opportunity given to shoot at all. So I aimed 
at about the height where I calculated his shoulders 
must be, and nred. 

He bounded out at once, head in the air and fortun- 
ately, in my general direction. Picking an opening 
in the thicket ahead of him, I nred with the only result 
that he increased his speed but without changing his 
direction which brought him through an open space 
about twenty-five yards directly in front of me. The 
third shot brought him down in a heap, the bullet 
having gone through his spine. An examination showed 
that each of the first two shots had gone through the 
flanks without striking any bones. Not fifteen seconds 
had elapsed between the nrst and the fatal shot. 

The nrst thing to do was to summon help so I nred 
our private signals — 'two shorts and a long," that 
is, two quick shots, and after a short interval, a third. 
In a moment, Walter nred an answering signal, and 
ten minutes later, he was with me. We tried to hang 
the deer up in order to dress him more easily, but 
found he was too heavy. A freshly killed deer weighing 
in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds is the 
hardest kind of an object to handle. He seems to have 
joints that permit him to double up in any direction, 
and his wiry, brown hair is as slippery as if oiled. We 
had just finished turning him 'inside out,"- — being 
careful to save the heart and liver — when Bill appeared. 

29 



MINNISINK CAMP- 



^Z 




•• 






fe 


: ,> Sy*B**" 






Niiw « 1 






'• 111 if ^1A 1 «& 








■ 




MBBf 






«*' 






^L|- 'li,' "',.. ,. . 


■m 




_ 







He had heard the signal 
snots over two miles 
away. Dave and Horace 
did not near them, tne 
wind being in tne wrong 
direction, and they had 
gone back to tne Cabin. 
Tne sun was now set- 
ting with tne hard work 
yet before us, and a 
good four miles from 
camp. Don t take maga- 
zine pictures seriously 
which show the hunter 
coming home with a deer 
slung around his should- 
ers. That cannot be 
done except perhaps 
with very small speci- 
mens. After a deer has 
hung twenty-four hours 
and has gotten stirr, one 
strong man can handle him, but not through red brush. 
We cut our pole, strapped the deer closely to it and 
began the hard pull for home, two men alternating 
with the third who carried the three rifles. We made 
half the distance and had almost reached the old road 
through the pines when darkness and tired muscles 
made further progress impossible. 

It was decided to split the party. Bill and Wawa 
stayed by the deer while O. H., being the longest 
legged, set out through the black woods for camp and 
help. On reaching the Cabin, I found the gang about 
to sit down to supper, George having already served 
the soup. The sight of the three rifles and my blood 
stained clothing convinced them that the welcome news 
was true. We stopped only long enough to eat the soup 
and fill a bottle of spring water for the thirsty hunters 
out there in the pines. In ten minutes, lanterns were 
ready and the "gang" were off. A signal brought a 

30 



BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



response from away beyond East Branch Swamp. We 
wanted mem to know we were coming to their relief. 

In an hour, or maybe less, we found them sitting by 
a friendly nre and fairly cnoking for water. After 
resting a moment and examining the prize, the return 
journey was begun, the many willing shoulders making 
possible continuous motion at good speed. We reached 
the Cabin at nine. Hanging the deer upon our game 
tree was short work, and we sat down to a hard earned 
but rather late supper. 

Many another such tale might be told — how Bill 
brought down his first buck, shooting from a pine tree 
at one of the finest specimens of black shouldered 
deer ever taken out of Pike County; or how he and 
O. H. waded and swam across from Pmchot Island 
with a small buck one late November afternoon, 
coming down the Hawley Road with outer clothing 
frozen stiff. Every head that adorns our walls at home 
suggests a story of its own and brings back memories 
of those hard but happy days in the woods. 

May there be many more like them ! 




31 



MINNISINK CAMP 



The sun has set back of the Knot) and the hunter is 
coming in from the last days hunt. His cheery whistle 
as he swings down the road is answered by a call from 
the Cabin. What matters if he has had luck or not? 
The two weeks in the woods have hardened his muscles, 
steadied his nerves and nlled him with vigor for another 
year of work. He throws off his coat, stands his rifle 
behind his cot and prepares to do violence to the 
Brobdingnaggian supperthatGeorgehasheaped smoking 
upon the table. 

The moon rises cold and clear over the black ice 
and the stillness promises a bite to the air for the 
morning. A glance at the thermometer shows fifteen 
degrees. 

"It will be zero in the morning, boys ; let s put that 
big log on her tonight. 

It takes two of you to bring it in, a heavy white oak, 
twelve inches through and three feet long. You roll 
it back and pile the lighter logs in front. Into the red 
hot coals, you thrust three or four fat pine knots, and 
in an instant, the flames break through, setting free 
the stored up warmth and sunshine the trees have 
spent years in gathering for you. Pipes are nlled, 
chairs drawn up and the last tales are told. Tomorrow, 
we go out. 

Back Log and Pine Knot. They light us to our wel- 
come blankets and give an inspiration to happy dreams 
of these, the better days of our lives. 




32 



• BACK LOG and PINE KNOT 



Members of trie 
Minnisink Hunting and Fishing Club 



William L. Fox "Bill 

O. Howard Wolfe "O. H. 

Horace W. Shelmire ..... Hoddy 

David R. Shelmire "Dave 

Walter Peirson, Jr. ..... "Wawa 

Dr. George R. Fleming ..... "George 

S. Judson Parrott "Pop 

Dr. George E. Levis ..... Doc 



Honorary Members 



David Shelmire 
J. M. Wolfe 



33 



•MINNISINK CAMP 



Index of Illustrations 



Frontispiece : ' Down by the edge of the swamp. 

Page 3. "Climb the nearest pine and High Knob 
will see you. 

Page 6. 'Like the fungus growth on a fallen oak 
tree. 

Page 8. In the old tenting days. 

Page 10. 'The Cabin grew rapidly. 

Page 14. k Tt is built to stay." 

Page 17. Up the Hawley Road. ' 

Page 20. "Through the White Birch Opening. " 

Page 21. "A good tracking snow. 

(The clearing at Smiths; High Knob in 
the distance.) 

Page 26. "Where the amber waters of the creek are 
bridged by a fallen tree" (Hickory Cross- 
ing). 

Page 30. "Hanging the deer upon our game tree was 
short work. 

Page 31. "Come, let us draw up and smoke. 

Page 32. "The sun has set back of the Knob. 



The cover drawing of the Cabin fire-place is by 
J. S. Moyer. 



34 



BIDDLE CORPORATION 
PHILADELPHIA 



